(You can listen to this reflection here.)
Herod’s prognosticators told him in no uncertain terms where the Messiah was to be born:
“In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
Bethlehem, after all, was the town of King David, from whose lineage the Savior was to come. Luke takes care to let us know that Joseph was of David’s line and just why he and Mary happened to be in Bethlehem in time for Jesus’ birth. Does it matter for us where Jesus was born? It mattered to Herod, because he wanted to eliminate any threats to his kingship. It mattered to the magi because they wanted to find and honor this new king heralded by such a star. But does it matter to us?
Yes. The story of God-With-Us, God-with-Flesh-On is not a general, abstract story. It is a very specific one, with very particular details. Some of those details have been such a stumbling block to critics and would-be believers, that theologians refer to the “Scandal of Particularity.”
Luke’s telling of Jesus’ nativity is full of particulars, who, what, when, where: "In the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy], God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary…. In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
And in the passage we reflect on this this week, we see Jesus wander away from these very specific parents to hang out in the temple in Jerusalem, simultaneously an insensitive adolescent and a young man hungry for sacred teaching.
To say that Jesus was a human person born like every other human person in history, to a human mother, in a particular place and in a particular time, is to say that specifics and places and times matter to God. The Christian claim is that God chose to enter specific circumstances in order to redeem all circumstances, that God was born into a specific family to redeem all families, that God entered human history in a very particular time (while Quirinius was governor of Syria, yet!) to redeem all time. And God cares about your specific space and time as well.
If Jesus was being born in your life this season and you were writing the Gospel account – how would you describe your place and your time? It could be a fun exercise to name the particularities into which God might come to you. What is significant about your circumstances, family, government, times, places? When you’ve named them, you might hold them in prayer for God to make holy. It is a way of praying into our lives as they are right now, today.
Receive the Christmas story as a pledge of God’s love for you. As we begin a new year, in continuity with all the years we have lived to this point, we are invited to remember God-With-Us in every moment, the one we’re living right now, and the one about to unfold before us. There. Then. Here. Now. You.
12-30-19 - Mary Pondered
(You can listen to this reflection here.)
This week we’ll explore the one story in the gospels that shows us Jesus as a child – a pre-teen, in fact. It sheds some light on the challenges his parents must have faced in raising him. It makes me wonder about Mary. Did she doubt during those months of pregnancy, wonder if she’d dreamt that story about the angel and his grand promises about the baby in her womb? But then, how did that baby get there? She would not have forgotten that… And there was confirmation when she visited her cousin Elizabeth and found the aged woman in the pink of pregnancy. Yet even that could be humanly possible… But then, to learn that Joseph had had dreams which matched what the angel had told her
Even so, could this really be a movement of God, to save the world, through her? That would be too crazy to fathom. Until that gift came to pass, that deliverer delivered from her own body, swaddled and laid to sleep in a feeding trough, the hay keeping him warm. And in burst a bunch of shepherds bearing tales of angelic visitations. And those words again, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."
A sign for the shepherds, yes, and also for Joseph and Mary. Luke tells us that, while the shepherds went out and spread the amazing story, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
What did Mary ponder? Once, in prayer, I sensed an encounter with her, a gracious older woman in a blue-green knit turtleneck dress. She said a few things as I asked her questions: “I was not all that good or all that brave. I was a bit of a flirt in my day – and had a sharp tongue. I was funny. Boy, that whole experience grew me up in a hurry... Oh, you can believe what you like about all the stories. I’ll just say, it was hard. It was rough. I felt very, very alone – didn’t know Joseph enough to trust him yet."
And the sword that the elder Simeon spoke of, when they presented Jesus in the temple? (Luke 2:22-40) “A sword pierces the heart of every mother,” she said. “From the moment your child is born, he is moving toward independence, which is a kind of death for you. He is moving toward death.“
She added, “I couldn’t worship him in life. How do you worship one whose diapers you’ve changed? No, he was always my son in this life. It wasn’t until after my death that I could worship him.”
Were Mary’s ponderings different from those of any new mother? The stakes were higher, perhaps – but also the knowledge that, if this truly was a movement of God, then God would continue to be the mover. I hope she had that confidence, and that it bore her through the rough times ahead, of which this week’s gospel story is barely a whisper. I hope that for us, as well, as we bear Christ’s presence and light into this world. God will send signs for us, too.
This week we’ll explore the one story in the gospels that shows us Jesus as a child – a pre-teen, in fact. It sheds some light on the challenges his parents must have faced in raising him. It makes me wonder about Mary. Did she doubt during those months of pregnancy, wonder if she’d dreamt that story about the angel and his grand promises about the baby in her womb? But then, how did that baby get there? She would not have forgotten that… And there was confirmation when she visited her cousin Elizabeth and found the aged woman in the pink of pregnancy. Yet even that could be humanly possible… But then, to learn that Joseph had had dreams which matched what the angel had told her
Even so, could this really be a movement of God, to save the world, through her? That would be too crazy to fathom. Until that gift came to pass, that deliverer delivered from her own body, swaddled and laid to sleep in a feeding trough, the hay keeping him warm. And in burst a bunch of shepherds bearing tales of angelic visitations. And those words again, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."
A sign for the shepherds, yes, and also for Joseph and Mary. Luke tells us that, while the shepherds went out and spread the amazing story, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
What did Mary ponder? Once, in prayer, I sensed an encounter with her, a gracious older woman in a blue-green knit turtleneck dress. She said a few things as I asked her questions: “I was not all that good or all that brave. I was a bit of a flirt in my day – and had a sharp tongue. I was funny. Boy, that whole experience grew me up in a hurry... Oh, you can believe what you like about all the stories. I’ll just say, it was hard. It was rough. I felt very, very alone – didn’t know Joseph enough to trust him yet."
And the sword that the elder Simeon spoke of, when they presented Jesus in the temple? (Luke 2:22-40) “A sword pierces the heart of every mother,” she said. “From the moment your child is born, he is moving toward independence, which is a kind of death for you. He is moving toward death.“
She added, “I couldn’t worship him in life. How do you worship one whose diapers you’ve changed? No, he was always my son in this life. It wasn’t until after my death that I could worship him.”
Were Mary’s ponderings different from those of any new mother? The stakes were higher, perhaps – but also the knowledge that, if this truly was a movement of God, then God would continue to be the mover. I hope she had that confidence, and that it bore her through the rough times ahead, of which this week’s gospel story is barely a whisper. I hope that for us, as well, as we bear Christ’s presence and light into this world. God will send signs for us, too.
12-27-19 - Word Made Flesh
(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
We have been fed this week on The Story, in all its glory – the human tale of a man and a woman and a baby, the political tale of census and intrigue, the earthy tale of shepherds, and the heavenly tale of angelic visitors. It is a feast for lovers of narrative and mystery, this tale which Madeleine L’Engle called “The Glorious Impossible.”
Then, on the Sunday after Christmas, as though we needed leaner fare after too much Christmas feasting, the church offers up the story of Incarnation told in symbols and ideas rather than folktales: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
It may be great for those who love the abstract, but I find almost every sentence in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel can make my head hurt. Sometimes I'm best just throwing myself in and floating with the images – zeroing in on the ones that capture my attention:
“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Ah, light and darkness, that we can understand. And this: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”
That’s what all that fuss about the manger and Bethlehem was about – that the Word of God, the idea in the mind of God, what John calls “Logos,” has been realized – made real, given flesh, human flesh, a body and a human psyche; AND (that’s not all, folks..) that this Embodied Idea of God has lived among us – and we have seen his glory.
Lived among us? (or more literally, “pitched tent with us”), come to hang out with us, God-With-Us? That was a mind-blowing idea then, as it is today.
In what ways have you experienced Christ as embodied, God-with-you? We don’t have the benefit of meeting Christ in physical, limited life, living as we do on this side of the Resurrection – but we have the benefit of faith, our own and that accumulated by billions of believers for over 2000 years.
So it’s a fair question: In what ways have you experienced Christ as embodied, God-with-you?
In what ways have you experienced his glory? Do you ever see it/hear it/feel it around you?
We have been fed this week on The Story, in all its glory – the human tale of a man and a woman and a baby, the political tale of census and intrigue, the earthy tale of shepherds, and the heavenly tale of angelic visitors. It is a feast for lovers of narrative and mystery, this tale which Madeleine L’Engle called “The Glorious Impossible.”
Then, on the Sunday after Christmas, as though we needed leaner fare after too much Christmas feasting, the church offers up the story of Incarnation told in symbols and ideas rather than folktales: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
It may be great for those who love the abstract, but I find almost every sentence in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel can make my head hurt. Sometimes I'm best just throwing myself in and floating with the images – zeroing in on the ones that capture my attention:
“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Ah, light and darkness, that we can understand. And this: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”
That’s what all that fuss about the manger and Bethlehem was about – that the Word of God, the idea in the mind of God, what John calls “Logos,” has been realized – made real, given flesh, human flesh, a body and a human psyche; AND (that’s not all, folks..) that this Embodied Idea of God has lived among us – and we have seen his glory.
Lived among us? (or more literally, “pitched tent with us”), come to hang out with us, God-With-Us? That was a mind-blowing idea then, as it is today.
In what ways have you experienced Christ as embodied, God-with-you? We don’t have the benefit of meeting Christ in physical, limited life, living as we do on this side of the Resurrection – but we have the benefit of faith, our own and that accumulated by billions of believers for over 2000 years.
So it’s a fair question: In what ways have you experienced Christ as embodied, God-with-you?
In what ways have you experienced his glory? Do you ever see it/hear it/feel it around you?
When do those glimpses come? If they don’t, there’s a prayer….
Our passage ends, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.” In the season of Christmas we celebrate Jesus having made God known – once in a human body and family and place, and now through the working of His Spirit in, through and around us, in our bodies, families, and places.
“Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” we sing…
to which the only response we need make is: "O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”
Our passage ends, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.” In the season of Christmas we celebrate Jesus having made God known – once in a human body and family and place, and now through the working of His Spirit in, through and around us, in our bodies, families, and places.
“Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” we sing…
to which the only response we need make is: "O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”
12-25-19 - A Shepherd's Tale
(You can listen to this reflection here.)
We’re usually the last to know. Our life is out here on the hillsides, away from town.
We work at night, making sure no poachers or predators mess with our flocks. When we do get to town, it’s usually when we’ve been paid and are up for a little carousing… not for nothin’ we shepherds got a rep for being drunken lowlifes. Nobody tells us the news first.
So what do you think about the angels showing up to tell us first? Well, what do you think about a bunch of angels showing up in the first place? I’d have thought it was the rotgut we were passing around – but no, we all saw ’em. We all heard ’em. Hundreds of ’em, filling the sky. What a racket! What a beautiful noise.
And what a message: “Today, in David’s town, a boy is born to you. And not just any boy – a savior, the Messiah, the anointed one, the Lord.”
We may just be shepherds, but we know about the Messiah, the one who God will send to set us free from the occupiers – set us free from everything. That’s pretty amazing.
Even more amazing, those angels showed up to us while we were at work. Not to the kings in their palaces, not to the rich in their fancy houses; not to the priests in the temple, not to the holy people at their prayers – not to those who are expecting God to do something – but to us, who forget even to pray, most of the time. To us, who people barely notice in the street, unless they smell us comin’… To us, who don’t count for much – except that we must count for a lot to God. Right? Because that angel said this was a sign for us.
That’s what the angel said, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in cloth and lying in a feed trough.” Who puts a baby in a feed trough? Liable to get chewed on. So all we gotta do is check out all the stables down in Bethlehem till we find a baby where a baby ain’t supposed to be.
We’re going to draw straws to see who has to stay with the sheep – the rest of us have some searching to do, and a story to tell. Man, what a story. You might not even believe it, unless it happened to you…
A Very Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Eat!
Drink (not too much...!)
Be Merry!
Play with a toy!
Hug somebody in a kitchen!
Love came down at Christmas - Christ, the Savior, is born!
We’re usually the last to know. Our life is out here on the hillsides, away from town.
We work at night, making sure no poachers or predators mess with our flocks. When we do get to town, it’s usually when we’ve been paid and are up for a little carousing… not for nothin’ we shepherds got a rep for being drunken lowlifes. Nobody tells us the news first.
So what do you think about the angels showing up to tell us first? Well, what do you think about a bunch of angels showing up in the first place? I’d have thought it was the rotgut we were passing around – but no, we all saw ’em. We all heard ’em. Hundreds of ’em, filling the sky. What a racket! What a beautiful noise.
And what a message: “Today, in David’s town, a boy is born to you. And not just any boy – a savior, the Messiah, the anointed one, the Lord.”
We may just be shepherds, but we know about the Messiah, the one who God will send to set us free from the occupiers – set us free from everything. That’s pretty amazing.
Even more amazing, those angels showed up to us while we were at work. Not to the kings in their palaces, not to the rich in their fancy houses; not to the priests in the temple, not to the holy people at their prayers – not to those who are expecting God to do something – but to us, who forget even to pray, most of the time. To us, who people barely notice in the street, unless they smell us comin’… To us, who don’t count for much – except that we must count for a lot to God. Right? Because that angel said this was a sign for us.
That’s what the angel said, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in cloth and lying in a feed trough.” Who puts a baby in a feed trough? Liable to get chewed on. So all we gotta do is check out all the stables down in Bethlehem till we find a baby where a baby ain’t supposed to be.
We’re going to draw straws to see who has to stay with the sheep – the rest of us have some searching to do, and a story to tell. Man, what a story. You might not even believe it, unless it happened to you…
A Very Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Eat!
Drink (not too much...!)
Be Merry!
Play with a toy!
Hug somebody in a kitchen!
Love came down at Christmas - Christ, the Savior, is born!
12-24-19 - O Holy Night
(You can listen to this reflection here. Tonight's gospel reading is here.)
Tonight’s the night, the big show, what it’s all been leading up to. In my youth, it was all leading up to Christmas morning, but our culture has shifted toward Christmas Eve as the main event.
It is not always a silent night. Many a parent may wish for a little more silence, while people for whom it is too silent long for more noise, more company. And often it is not such a holy night either, if stress or sadness or tempers take over.
Are we supposed to experience it as holy? In my curmudgeonly twenties I once wrote in my diary on Christmas Day, “I can’t get more excited about Jesus being born just because the calendar says it’s December 25th. Shouldn’t we be excited all year long?” Ah, youth.
"But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people."
What I pray for you tonight, and for me, is that we feel a little anticipation, a little expectation, that SOMETHING is going to happen. Yes, we are celebrating a Something that we believe happened long ago, yet we are here each year, showing up at the manger, joining in the angels’ “glorias” because we believe it that Something is unfolding still, becoming ever clearer. SOMEONE is drawing nearer.
I pray for you, and for me, that we have moments of wonder tonight – maybe something we see in children, or feel during a much-loved carol, or in a moment of connection with loved one or stranger. I want us to experience Christmas Eve, not just move through it. I want us to experience the Holy Spirit within and around us. I want us to “get” God-With-Us in our bones.
I can’t make that happen, for you or for me. I only know that we may not have that experience looking nostalgically at where we “felt” Christmas in the past. God is always doing a new thing, leading us forward, like those magi from the East following their star.
And sometimes God just shows up even when we’re not looking, when we’re wrapping one more gift or washing up after Christmas Eve dinner, or piling a little one into bed. Those shepherds weren’t watching for God – they were watching their flocks by night. And lo and behold, God showed up.
Man, did God ever show up! A blessed Christmas Eve to you.
Tonight’s the night, the big show, what it’s all been leading up to. In my youth, it was all leading up to Christmas morning, but our culture has shifted toward Christmas Eve as the main event.
It is not always a silent night. Many a parent may wish for a little more silence, while people for whom it is too silent long for more noise, more company. And often it is not such a holy night either, if stress or sadness or tempers take over.
Are we supposed to experience it as holy? In my curmudgeonly twenties I once wrote in my diary on Christmas Day, “I can’t get more excited about Jesus being born just because the calendar says it’s December 25th. Shouldn’t we be excited all year long?” Ah, youth.
"But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people."
What I pray for you tonight, and for me, is that we feel a little anticipation, a little expectation, that SOMETHING is going to happen. Yes, we are celebrating a Something that we believe happened long ago, yet we are here each year, showing up at the manger, joining in the angels’ “glorias” because we believe it that Something is unfolding still, becoming ever clearer. SOMEONE is drawing nearer.
I pray for you, and for me, that we have moments of wonder tonight – maybe something we see in children, or feel during a much-loved carol, or in a moment of connection with loved one or stranger. I want us to experience Christmas Eve, not just move through it. I want us to experience the Holy Spirit within and around us. I want us to “get” God-With-Us in our bones.
I can’t make that happen, for you or for me. I only know that we may not have that experience looking nostalgically at where we “felt” Christmas in the past. God is always doing a new thing, leading us forward, like those magi from the East following their star.
And sometimes God just shows up even when we’re not looking, when we’re wrapping one more gift or washing up after Christmas Eve dinner, or piling a little one into bed. Those shepherds weren’t watching for God – they were watching their flocks by night. And lo and behold, God showed up.
Man, did God ever show up! A blessed Christmas Eve to you.
12-23-19 - Is It Christmas Yet?
(You can listen to this reflection here.)
Christmas is coming… and after four hospital visits, three funerals (one the annual Homeless Persons Memorial Day service), two Baby Showers for Mary and Joseph, and one baptism, I got to the end of last week with no partridge in my pear tree – not even a tree up yet. I squeezed in some baking here and there, wondering when I could do some shopping. Finally on Saturday I had time to haul out the Christmas boxes and begin my own preparations.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born…
It gets real for me when I set up the crèche. I do it the same way each year, placing the figures the same way in the stable, the angels at the same angles on the gold lame cloth that represents theglory of the Lord (that “shone round about them…”). The three kings are on a higher book shelf, still on their journey. The shepherd and the sheep are nearby in the field. One year I moved the stable cat down from the hayloft, closer to the manger. (A velociraptor remains in the loft… danger lurks in the most pastoral of scenes.)
And Mary and Joseph await the birth, gazing at an empty manger, waiting… waiting… waiting for the moment when it all changes, when new life brings an end to the old. Mary and Joseph were never going to be able to go back to what they’d known. No new parents can – and these two were going to face more change than most.
What are you waiting for in your life this week? Perhaps it’s related to Christmas, perhaps not.
What new life are you praying for? And what are you hoping will never go away?New life is always coming at us, sometimes taking up the space of something we rather liked, or had grown comfortable with. Is there something yearning to take up space in your life, space you’re willing to make by letting something else go?On Christmas Eve, when I get home from church, I will fetch the baby out of the little wicker trunk in the back of the stable (Mary had to have some luggage…) and place him in the manger. Jesus always shows up, eventually. Sometimes we just have to let him out of the baggage.To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Sunday’s readings are here.
Christmas is coming… and after four hospital visits, three funerals (one the annual Homeless Persons Memorial Day service), two Baby Showers for Mary and Joseph, and one baptism, I got to the end of last week with no partridge in my pear tree – not even a tree up yet. I squeezed in some baking here and there, wondering when I could do some shopping. Finally on Saturday I had time to haul out the Christmas boxes and begin my own preparations.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born…
It gets real for me when I set up the crèche. I do it the same way each year, placing the figures the same way in the stable, the angels at the same angles on the gold lame cloth that represents theglory of the Lord (that “shone round about them…”). The three kings are on a higher book shelf, still on their journey. The shepherd and the sheep are nearby in the field. One year I moved the stable cat down from the hayloft, closer to the manger. (A velociraptor remains in the loft… danger lurks in the most pastoral of scenes.)
And Mary and Joseph await the birth, gazing at an empty manger, waiting… waiting… waiting for the moment when it all changes, when new life brings an end to the old. Mary and Joseph were never going to be able to go back to what they’d known. No new parents can – and these two were going to face more change than most.
What are you waiting for in your life this week? Perhaps it’s related to Christmas, perhaps not.
What new life are you praying for? And what are you hoping will never go away?New life is always coming at us, sometimes taking up the space of something we rather liked, or had grown comfortable with. Is there something yearning to take up space in your life, space you’re willing to make by letting something else go?On Christmas Eve, when I get home from church, I will fetch the baby out of the little wicker trunk in the back of the stable (Mary had to have some luggage…) and place him in the manger. Jesus always shows up, eventually. Sometimes we just have to let him out of the baggage.To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Sunday’s readings are here.
12-20-19 - Trust and Obey
(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him…”
Joseph was a paragon of virtue, it would appear – a man who did what God commanded even when it exposed him to shame and ridicule – and ultimately to a fair amount of danger, once the implications of being step-father to God’s son became apparent. Joseph excelled at obeying.
I am somewhat allergic to the word “obey.” I remember a hymn, which I always loathed, for I believe it captures all the legalistic religiosity I spend much energy countering:
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way / to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
“Yes, there is!” I want to shout. “There is the way of grace and acceptance and doing good on the power of the Spirit, not on our own!” As one whose faith came alive under a steady stream of preaching about the grace of God; as one who is keenly aware of the limits of willpower; I prefer to stress the unconditional love of God that we receive despite our failure to obey. Obedience is so closely linked in my mind to legalism, I react negatively to it, despite my generally compliant nature.
And yet, here is Joseph, reminding me of the power that can be unleashed when we simply obey. Joseph’s obedience may have come from a self-disciplined nature. Or maybe it resulted from the very clear and powerful supernatural message he received in his dream from an angel of the Lord – reinforced, no doubt, by Mary’s tale of her own angelic encounter. We might find ourselves more inclined toward obeying and following God's guidance as we become more in touch with our own divine encounters. They may not be as dramatic as Joseph’s, but they are real.
So... when did you last sense the Spirit of God nudging you or instructing you in some way?
When did you last sense the presence of God around you?
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him…”
Joseph was a paragon of virtue, it would appear – a man who did what God commanded even when it exposed him to shame and ridicule – and ultimately to a fair amount of danger, once the implications of being step-father to God’s son became apparent. Joseph excelled at obeying.
I am somewhat allergic to the word “obey.” I remember a hymn, which I always loathed, for I believe it captures all the legalistic religiosity I spend much energy countering:
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way / to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
“Yes, there is!” I want to shout. “There is the way of grace and acceptance and doing good on the power of the Spirit, not on our own!” As one whose faith came alive under a steady stream of preaching about the grace of God; as one who is keenly aware of the limits of willpower; I prefer to stress the unconditional love of God that we receive despite our failure to obey. Obedience is so closely linked in my mind to legalism, I react negatively to it, despite my generally compliant nature.
And yet, here is Joseph, reminding me of the power that can be unleashed when we simply obey. Joseph’s obedience may have come from a self-disciplined nature. Or maybe it resulted from the very clear and powerful supernatural message he received in his dream from an angel of the Lord – reinforced, no doubt, by Mary’s tale of her own angelic encounter. We might find ourselves more inclined toward obeying and following God's guidance as we become more in touch with our own divine encounters. They may not be as dramatic as Joseph’s, but they are real.
So... when did you last sense the Spirit of God nudging you or instructing you in some way?
When did you last sense the presence of God around you?
Or see evidence of God’s handiwork in your life or in the world?
If you cannot think of anything… there might be a prayer in that. Ask God to help you become more aware, or to open your own heart a little wider to what is happening in the unseen realm of spirit.
It is hard to trust, let alone obey, a total stranger. If we keep God at arm’s length or at a polite distance, it's harder to discern the leaps of faith we are invited to take, let alone jump. God may never ask us to take a leap like Joseph did, yet God does invite us to nurture the Christ-life in ourselves and in others, every day of the year, like Joseph. We don’t have to escort a pregnant woman to Bethlehem… we just have to find the couple there and meet their newborn.
If you cannot think of anything… there might be a prayer in that. Ask God to help you become more aware, or to open your own heart a little wider to what is happening in the unseen realm of spirit.
It is hard to trust, let alone obey, a total stranger. If we keep God at arm’s length or at a polite distance, it's harder to discern the leaps of faith we are invited to take, let alone jump. God may never ask us to take a leap like Joseph did, yet God does invite us to nurture the Christ-life in ourselves and in others, every day of the year, like Joseph. We don’t have to escort a pregnant woman to Bethlehem… we just have to find the couple there and meet their newborn.
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